I was fortunate to have some friends who were into prog when I was at school. So a lot of discoveries were from them and word of mouth generally.

As has been mentioned already, in the seventies prog was pretty mainstream and was on radio and TV. I discovered a lot of great stuff listening to the likes of Alan Freeman on Radio 1 and watching The Old Grey Whistle Test on BBC2. What memories !

Mainstream?

Alan freeman show, 2 or 3 hours every saturday, OGWT half an hour every week late at night..when it was on.

Some prog was played on the radio and I remember at school the music library was well stocked with ELP, Yes and King Crimson albums. I even remember someone polling kids at school to find out their favourite bands and the prog bands came out on top. This was in Swindon ( a benchmark for English averageness not some strange place) and it was around about 1977. BBC Radio wise Alan 'Fluff' Freeman was a big deal on a Saturday afternoon. I also discovered Radio Luxembourg and Radio Caroline who seemed to play a lot of prog stuff. I don't believe it was that underground at the time although by the early eighties it was being wiped off the face of planet it seemed. BUT then came IQ,Marillion and the rest.

I suppose when I first started listening to prog there was very little on the radio as it was 76/77 ish and guess what was pushing its way into the world. I know I used to listen to Alan Freeman on Sat but I don't remember what he used to play (except I was quite surprised once when he played something by Joy Division and that may have been the first time I heard them. At the same time I would listen to John Peel (so pretty well no prog there).

So basically any other prog I heard from friends and friends of friends. Who found out about it from older friends and brothers and sisters and their friends. Borrowing records!! You don't have to do that now. And by reading the music papers. I remember reading about what is called neoprog round these parts in Sounds and the Melody Maker and then trotting off to see Marillion just on the basis of a gig review. You just had to find out for yourself with no interenet or nothing

I don't think I've ever seen Old Grey Whistle Test, only heard tales of it lol. Didn't even know there was a prog show on the radio!A couple of you said you went by album covers, I do that, it's not the best way to go. Anyone name an album they bought at the time completely unknowing of the band, just based on the cover?Was it any good?

I don't think I've ever seen Old Grey Whistle Test, only heard tales of it lol. Didn't even know there was a prog show on the radio!A couple of you said you went by album covers, I do that, it's not the best way to go. Anyone name an album they bought at the time completely unknowing of the band, just based on the cover? Was it any good?

I presume you want to go even further than that, right? Casual findings?

"People tell you life is short. ... No, it's not. Life is long. Especially if you make the wrong decisions." - Chris Rock

Oh well I am obviously barking mad. I never heard Prog on mainstream radio. What else can I say? Just explaing why it is not unusual for his dad not to have heard of those bands.

I only really became aware of rock music around 1979 and, even though we were well into the punk/new wave era by then, there was still a reasonable amount of prog on mainstream media. I remember seeing a Mike Oldfield concert (Exposed tour) and a Genesis show (round about the time of Duke), both on BBC2. There were various singles in the charts (Genesis, Rush, Peter Gabriel). There was The Wall. I remember seeing a massive window display for Drama in one of the local record shops. The Friday Rock Show on Radio 1, although mainly heavy metal by then, did feature some prog. On it, I heard archive sessions of Caravan and VDGG. I also heard And You and I which was what inspired me to buy my first Yes album. Certainly progressive rock (as it was called then) was unfashionable and on the wane and it's true that I was in a minority amongst my peers, but I wasn't alone in being interested in this stuff, and digging into early 70s back catalogues etc. My recollection is that even those who didn't like it had heard of most of the major bands.

Only by the grace of God I was able to plug into the Prog world. When I started high school years ago I remember listening to Tom Sawyer with my dad in the car and thinking... Yeah, this is pretty good. It wouldn't be until I walked into my ninth grade history teacher's class on that awkward first day of high school I would venture into Prog. I remember walking in and hearing this devil singing, heavy back beat, vicious guitar sound (I would later learn it was Opeth's Ghost Reveries) and thinking, "What is this?" My teacher really expanded my taste and view after we hit it off talking about Rush. Ever since that fateful day I've been growing and and expanding into the Prog community. If it hadn't been for high school, I don't think I would have stumbled too far into Prog.

"All (the naked man) means is the abstract man against the masses. The red star symbolizes any collectivist mentality." - Neil Peart

I'd have to say (and kudos to the marketing departments), but a lot of the prog bands I followed in the '70s were because of some really striking cover art! It's one of those "the cover's cool so the music must be great!" kind of things.

This was my first thought when I read this thread, but I must say that a lot of my friends who shared the same taste, at least back then, hear some song on the radio, like "From the beginning", "Living in the Past", and others from prog bands that became popular and were played on the radio. After buying the albums, we all discovered a new world of music, and at least for me, has remained my favorite to this day.

I asked my father the other day if he had heard of some of the 70's prog acts I listen to. To name a few, King Crimson, Hawkwind, Gentle Giant, Caravan... And he said no.

This absolutely baffled me, because his music, in general is proggy! David Bowie, Queen, Bryan Ferry. So I suppose, what I'm asking here is, how was it marketed back then? I was told "We didn't have the internet back then to discover music, we just made do''. And it made me wonder, how people found out about these bands? As I'm guessing it was just as niche then as it is now.

Does that make sense?

(By the way, I don't just mean those select few, I mean the whole prog scene, obviously there's a ton of bands/musicians that were active at the time)

Ha! Prog was HUGELY popular back then! Singles by Yes, ELP, Focus, Flash and other bands received as much airplay back then as Justin Bieber does today! Rock magazines like Circus were full of news about Yes, Genesis etc.

National tours by prog bands were some of the largest events in rock, filling the largest venues in big cities! Many records were broken by Yes and ELP. My first prog concert was Yes CTTE, 22 September, 1972 (with an unknown band called "The Eagles" opening for them!).

Back then, we had "record stores" and the best ones had many bins of import albums. That is how I learned about Magma, Amon Duul II and other bands in 1973. There were also underground radio stations, like the very progressive and hugely popular TRIAD radio in Chicago. See this page for the history of "freeform radio"

I believe prog was even more popular in the UK! Yes held court at the Marquee Club in London etc.

Exactly......I was from northwest Indiana and went to college at IU and many people were already into prog and 'weirder' sounds in 1969. There were local record shops and bins that specialized in imports and prog, etc.And some of the Chicago stations played more prog at night in themed shows. I had many friends who were more into classic rock or country rock or jazz but there were many who had records from all the genres. You might go to a party and here Zep, Sabbath, The Beatles, The Byrds, Yes, Elp...or whatever. But not that many were into the more 'obscure bands' like Nektar or VDGG....but they were around.

I went up to Cambridge in 1968 and the place was awash with early prog. Sid Barrett came from there, as did Dave Gilmour, so Floyd were well known and popular though I'd never heard of them when I went. The folk scene in Cambridge introduced us to prog folk bands like Fairport and Steeleye. We visited each other's rooms to listen, browsed through each other's record collections, borrowed and lent and sampled. I also tried to start a prog band, but I was too slow to learn (I blame the fact that I had to work for my exams) and they soon replaced me with someone who could actually play bass in time and in tune.

After graduating, I went to Imperial College and started a PhD (Brian May was apparently in the same department but left to work full time with Queen before I got to know him) and London was absolutely awash with prog. I saw almost every major band then active including Floyd, Purple, Heep, Caravan, Focus, Tull, ELP, Yes, BJH and many more - except Genesis and Strawbs, which I regret deeply since I've never seen either live and I love them both.

I left the country for Canada, which was almost prog free, but when I came back to do post doc at St Andrews I met people who doted on bands like Camel, Druid, Gryphon and Horslips and soon I did too. I also saw Rush in Glasgow, a band I'd missed in Canada (though they weren't really prog then). It was there I fell in love with Alan Freeman's show and I recorded a huge archive of material, but sadly a jealous ex-partner threw it away as an act of revenge - b*****d. Noel Edmonds also used to play a lot of prog on his morning show. Melody Maker, Sounds and NME also covered prog extensively.

In short, if you were at university in the late 60s/70s, prog was everywhere. You couldn't NOT hear it. It was one of the best selling genres (think of Floyd and Mike Oldfield who were in the charts for years at a time) and many bands made it on to mainstream television like Top of the Pops. And there was the OGWT which was compulsory viewing.

Things might have been very different outside the university environment, though.

I got into prog in the 80s, not the 70s, but it was still pre-internet. I discovered a lot of that stuff by way of the Rolling Stone Record Guide. I read that book from cover to cover several times. Even that had pretty skimpy coverage of prog, but it was a start.

Yeah, the 80s for me too. I also frequented the Rolling Stone Record Guide, trying to find out more about Genesis at first, and then looking for bands I might like similarly. I never bought the book, just stood there at the bookstore going through it. I had at least a good handful of friends who liked progressive rock too. Buffalo, NY was good for that even in the 80s. There were a couple used record stores in the area too that were chock full of old progressive rock albums.

Oh well I am obviously barking mad. I never heard Prog on mainstream radio. What else can I say? Just explaing why it is not unusual for his dad not to have heard of those bands.

IN most cases it wasn't the great long tracks that were played. For instance I can remember DLT playing Hoedown and that would have been about 1976. I had never heard ELP before that.

Also John Peel I recollect did play some prog.I used to listen to his show a lot when I was 15. There were also the odd event type radio programmes that looked at the history of rock music.Prog was always there or thereabouts.1978 to about 1981 it probably more or less disappeared although it was about 1981 that I discovered I could get Radio Caroline. There were at least 3 DJ's on that station that were prog fans! It wasn't just the well known stuff either.. Of course there was also the Friday Rock show. Might only have been 2 hours a week but it was massively important.

I got seriously into prog in the late '70's, you know that time when punk had supposedly killed prog. Personally the most grievous wound prog suffered was commercialitis. However, a lot of the big names in '70's prog did manage to get a song or two played on the radio. Interesting music was occasionally the stuff of hits. There were of course magazines and record stores and musicians who changed bands. The latter was great stuff for discovery through connections. For example, if you liked Yes and King Crimson, Jon Anderson had a cameo in KC and Bill Bruford jumped ship (before my prog time). You can't underestimate the power of word of mouth. My circle of friends and relatives that liked prog reveled in discovery so when we'd get together and enjoy music there was a lot of hey look what I found going on. The internet has been a great help in keeping prog alive and vital. Too many new artists I have discovered thanks to PA and before that, AOL had progressive as one of their streaming "radio" stations.

For me it was a slow process. Radio played very little prog, just the short under 5 minute songs. Most of mainstream were into top 40 stuff back then (some things never change). I, like many people, found the Beatles in the 60's, then ELO because they were different and had strings. My neighborhood friends were hugely influential because they introduced me to Genesis, Tull, Roxy Music, ELP, Yes. Genesis was the real hook for me. It was not called "Prog" back then! I don't recall hearing the term progressive until later on. Not much if any prog talk at school as I recall. It has always been fringe music.

One thing that was cool back then was finding hole in the wall record stores that usually had drug paraphernalia behind the counter, on shelves or behind the glass, bongs, pipes, etc. and perusing through the bootlegs bin. I still have many of those old bootlegs on vinyl, but they were abused for reasons I don't care to discuss right now.They had interesting names like "Bedside Yellow Foam" and "Awed Man Out"

Going to concerts and talking to record store personnel was my internet back then. Talk to strangers at prog. concerts! They are your brothers in music. Even today I learn about many groups through word of mouth. I learned about King Crimson, Camel, Ethos, Van Der Graff Generator, Heldon, Dixie Dregs, Tangerine Dream, through word of mouth at concerts. I learned about Gentle Giant because they were on the bill with Yes. What an amazing group that was to see live. They all played multiple instruments. Truly one of the most talented groups I have ever seen. They were captivating.

I had never been exposed to Canterbury Scene back then, strangely enough. The world was a lot larger then.

There has never been a better time for music than now. Enjoy it! You will look back fondly on this time period!

Early 1980s heard Duchess by Genesis on the radio, thought nice song think I'll investigate this (had very little interest in the music I was exposed to at the time). Bought Duke, great album, must buy more by this band.

Purchased Wind and Wuthering listened, thought what the hell is this? Listened a bit more hooked, bought Nursery Cryme, blimey this is a bit too weird, listened a bit more, again hooked.

Discovered other great bands, found Van der Graaf were perhaps what I had been looking for all my life.

Then lost interest in the mid-1980s and listened to a lot of 80s indie music (I was young and impressionable what can i say).

Lost interest in that when the whole scene dissolved into nothing in particular, went back to prog and have never loved it more than I do today.

Discovered Prog in the early 70's through my cousin (if memory serves), and then it was defined as "Art Rock' by teenagers. Many of the early underground European Prog bands which toured America were billed as opening acts for famous "Rock Stars" and that was the basic marketing concept at the time. PFM opening for Rory Gallagher or King Crimson opening for Humble PIE. That marketing concept drew a wide variety of fans who were interested in mainstream music. Extremely different than the world of Prog today or even much different from 1979 through the 80's where artists like Bill Bruford and National Health played small theatres in Philadelphia and N.Y. After Yes became internationally known, GRYPHON were on tour with them which was yet another different choice/way of doing things. It was a rarity for a "Hard Rock" band like STRAY DOG to be opening for ELP. Things were changing for the better and then it grew progressively worse in the late 70's regarding bookings.

When Bruford departed YES, fans took it to heart. Many fans turned up to the K.C. shows screaming Burford's name all night. That is evident on the live recordings of K.C. All Hell broke loose at J.F.K. stadium when YES played "RITUAL". The seats were set on fire and it started to spread rapidly as fire's often do. covering almost half of the entire stadium while Patrick Moraz continued to play his schizoid keyboard sounds at the closing of the piece. This is around the specific point in Prog history when Prog bands were actually playing stadiums just as the mainstream "Rock acts" were doing the same. Prog was actually part of the "Stadium Rock" time period. It is hilarious to think that at 1 time ELP headlined California Jam over Deep Purple who sold more for Warner Brothers than any act to date and within a 3 year period. Prog was in it's glory then. Triumvirat were being promoted as well and it truly puts things into perspective for me now. A very strange time to live through!

In Sweden radio didn't play much popular music at all in the 60s so we got used to listening to Radio Luxenburg. And then there were the record stores. Without them it would've been pretty difficult to hear anything outside of the charts.

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